Bexley Board of Education Meeting - February 2, 2021

001all right i know mr burno is logging on at the moment um appreciate everybody's patience as we all get uh put together on this there's mr barno so we've got that going for us i think um mr smith have you seen ms mitchell or ms mineo are they up in the administrative offices now i've not seen them around though okay um we'll give it a few more minutes i can go outside and see alicia just popped into my room she was going to set up oh great thank you i appreciate that okay [Music] mr burno do you know whose room you're in i'm in mr baugh's room i appreciate his bowling pins behind you they always make you oh all right well i do want to make sure we have everybody on for roll calls

002so we can just be a little a bit more patience which we're getting good at these days i am so sorry uh madam president i was down by the community room looking like um a lost one so a lost soul it didn't occur to me that i was in the wrong spot did you take miss bring miss mino back up with you we came together she like sachets up the stairs like it's no big deal meanwhile i like want to die i need to start taking yoga exactly she's she's a good yogi um okay well we will she's just waiting probably she just got into a classroom so she's probably logging on okay thank you [Music] there we are okay i think we're all here um thank you all for your patience tonight and your

003um board members um your willingness to show up and find different places where we can all um have this meeting safely so um given that i would like [Music] to call um this meeting to order which i'm going to need a different piece of paper to do apparently we're having one of those days i think it's clear we're having one of those days um in accordance with ohio revised code one two one two 1.22 and house bill 404 i now call the bexley board of education february 2nd 2021 um regular meeting to order mr um smith can you please call the roll mr barno here ms mineo miss mineo you're on mute yeah yes i know i'm here sorry thank you miss mitchell here mrs powers here ms snowden here thank you all right can

004i have a motion to approve our minutes please so moved second thank you all in favor please signify by saying i i i'm sorry sorry i had on just one thing this is such a minor thing go ahead thank you on the january 20th special meeting yes um i know michelle had an appointment and arrived just a little bit late it doesn't show her in the original roll call but i don't know if it shows her seconding the motion to go in executive session because that was all executive session i don't know if that was important or not to add when she arrived i don't think it matters um it's it was just something i noticed just because it shows that she was she showed she wasn't on the roll call but then um i'm

005looking at what you just put up yeah mr burno i highlighted we we highlight the time that oh i'm sorry i missed it i'm so sorry okay sorry about that you should look for that that's right yeah okay i'm sorry nope that's good thank you for checking and reading reading it um any other questions i'm sorry on our on our minutes or amendments okay thank you all in favor please signify by saying aye any opposed name sign thank you that motion carries so i'd like to move on to approval can i have a motion to approve our agenda for this evening summer second thank you any comments or changes thank you all in favor please signify by saying aye i any opposed same sign that motion carries i forgot to say i but i do

006mean i sorry i heard reading right it's a little it's good enough i was reading and zoned out thank you so an explanation for our public watching this tonight um i'm going to shortly ask for a motion to go into executive session as you may recall under statute the board of education can meet an executive session to discuss certain matters decisions to vote for any matters discussed in the executive session however must be made in public meeting therefore after our executive session will reconvene for any possible vote i would now like to entertain a motion to go into executive session in accordance with ohio revised code 121.22 for the consideration of the appointment employment or compensation of the public employee official so much thank you all in favor please signify by saying aye hi hi

007hi any opposed same sign that motion carries okay thank you all for your patience while we attend um to discussion and executive session we'll be on as soon as that's completed so okay [Music] all right so in our panelists we have [Music] one two three four five all of our board members on am i correct um thank you so um mr smith do i need a motion to return back into regular session yeah that's been our practice is to have a motion to reconvene okay thank you can i have a motion to reconvene regular um regular session please show me thank you all in favor please signify by saying hi hi any opposing sign thank you that motion carries so um i we're moving on now to section 3a um and i will start by

008saying that i'm now beyond pleased to inform our community that we will seek tonight to those in nature on barnum to negotiate a superintendent contract on behalf of the board with jill abraham our chief academic officer to be our next superintendent starting june 1st 2021 our plan is that dr good will continue to act as our super intern superintendent and will serve as a mentor to mrs abraham as she readies herself for her new role while still engaging in her present role as chief academic officer we are thrilled that our district will be the beneficiary of this exceptional corrupt collaboration of like-minded educational powerhouses the board will now seek to demo uh to designate mr burno to negotiate a contract with ms abraham in anticipation that she will officially take over at the home beginning

009at the beginning of june when dr good's intern superintendent contract expires but first i want to give a little background information on our exact on our selection process so as many of you are aware um when we have discussions about appointment employment or compensation of an employee of a public employee official we need to do that in an executive session so we have um as i mentioned in our letter my letter to the community last week with dr goodin plates we've had the time to assess the needs of our district and use a critical lens to evaluate the necessary traits of our next leader uh so we started with our leadership profile and many of you may recall that just a few years ago we um we engaged in a very deliberative process with that

010cost our community thirty thousand dollars um to have a full search firm come in and one of the things that came out of that when we were searching for our superintendent was a leadership profile so we thought it made sense um having already invested that to look at our leadership profile because it was developed with months-long input from our entire community so our students our staff parents business and community leaders all participated in this so i want to read the section entitled characteristics of a new superintendent that comes from that leadership profile this is in no particular order but um these were the the characteristics we were looking for someone approachable and a good listener collaborative with curriculum background and experience decisive focused on student achievement student-centered someone with a vision for the district committed

011long-term to the district someone with a financial understanding and background teaching and school leadership background strong communication skills a strong leader who's courageous proactive and a good delegator someone who can think out of the box with cutting edge thinking strategic problem solver and courageous someone transparent truthful honest visible someone with integrity who commands respect someone who's trustworthy authentic builds trust in the staff board and community understands and has experience with diversity and changing demographics and works with um the board to provide leading leadership for the entire community upon reading that profile it became very apparent to us that it would be an unnecessary use of resources to engage in that effort especially given the meaning um limitations due to coca-19 because it remained a very accurate reflection of our intentions and desires for our next

012superintendent furthermore we recognize that it is the best practice among top schools and institutions and businesses and a goal of our strategic plan to develop a high performing team so the board has been focused on building leadership success and succession plan from within our district for some time now good uh recognizing that um that organizational stability is in place when you have a good succession plan so we are fortunate some of the best educators in the state are attracted to bexley and we found one such individual ms abraham over a year ago when she became our chief academic officer we know that we need a leader who is collaborative and approachable with a deep understanding of teaching in school leadership someone who is focused on student achievement while ensuring that each child has equitably and

013inclusively developed his or her full potential jill is that leader we also benefit from the fact that jill knows bexley well as a current administrator uh this her hire will allow us a continuity to leadership that is especially welcome in this very chaotic year we are enduring because of the pandemic jill understands and appreciates our community administrators teachers and students and shares the vision of our board pursuer's strategic plan she can hit the ground running and avoid many pitfalls of one who does not know the community finally we recognize that communication is one of the most necessary skills of an effective leader we seek to honor our community's expectation regarding transparent consistent and complete information from the district jill has repeatedly impressed us with her ability not only to explain her work and vision but

014also to listen to others and incorporate input in a wonderfully iterative fashion she is an exceptionally organized and prepared for each challenge she has faced as uh the elected officials of our community we believe that our community will be impressed and confident in the leadership jail provides we are mindful that given our current limitations of gathering that not everyone has had the opportunity to meet joe as they would have in the past we also recognize that our process looks different this year than it has in the past i want you to be assured that as a board we worked very deliberately to weigh the pros and cons of how we might find a superintendent in this current pandemic we had the benefit of some excellent expert information and input from dr good and other leaders

015in education also three of us board members have been have gone through a superintendent search before and we feel that this process even though it is new to our community it is the best one for us at this time we also recognize that um in this process not all of our community members have had the opportunity to speak to jill as they may have in the past and we understand that our community wants input on the direction of our district so while it's the board's right and responsibility to make a decision on who we hire we want our community to give input into how ms abraham will start to lead our district and that's no different now now it will look a little different because we're going to have to put we will we're planning

016on putting together cobit appropriate community coffees and get-togethers to to further introduce jill to our community but we want you to know that we do continue to value your input and we know that ms abraham will as well which is exactly why we've chosen her because she's amazing inclusive and collaborative and we want all of our our community our community members to see that as well which we which we are sure you will um for those of you who haven't had the opportunity to meet her so please look forward um to information coming soon to sign up for those those um coffee get-togethers um and now i believe my fellow board members would like to take an opportunity to explain um our process around this decision and their um their decision using the other aspects

017of our leadership profile as a guide so i will start um with ms powers as our as our vice president thank you marley um i want to start by saying that i am really excited about our ability to bring forward jill abraham as our next superintendent um marley talked about our process i'm going to talk a little bit more about the leadership profile and why i'm excited about this choice in working to identify a new superintendent i've wanted to be confident that our choice would meet the expectations of our community including our students families parents our teachers our administrators and staff the leadership profile that marley talked about that was prepared three and a half or four years ago included and followed months of input from those constituencies and provided the board at this time

018with critical information about what our community stakeholders value the most the leadership profile that we have looked at ranked 25 qualities in order of their importance to our community i'm going to read the top five qualities these are the top five items that our community our teachers administrators family students named as being important in what they would expect in a superintendent number one foster a positive professional climate of mutual trust and respect among faculty staff and administrators to listen to and effectively represent the interests and concerns of students staff parents and community members number three hold a deep appreciation for diversity and the importance of providing safe and caring school invite environments number four lead in an encouraging participatory and team-focused manner and number five have a clear vision of what is required to provide

019exemplary educational services and implement effective change in summarizing these qualities and pulling together a profile of our ideal candidate our consultants grouped desired qualities into four areas one of the four areas was described as an efficient manager and those qualities that were thought to embody an efficient matter manager according to the work of our consultants was that we needed an efficient manager who is able to organize people and resources to accomplish goals who effectively plans and manages the long-term financial health of the district who aligns budgets long-range plans and operational procedures with the district's vision mission and goals who's accountable and holds others accountable who attracts leads evaluates and retains an effective team of administrators and staff who identifies confronts and resolves issues and concerns in a timely manner and who understands system thinking and

020implements system strategies i had the opportun opportunity to serve over the summer on the learning model subcommittee and recently on the hybrid 2.0 task force both of which were led by ms abraham these were opportunities for me to observe the level of organization goal setting and reaching communication skills and efficiency that ms abraham brings to every process the hybrid 2.0 task force involved more than 140 participants providing help and input as well as feedback from about 630 students ms abraham kept our eyes on the goal of increasing consistency and student contact with teachers the work of that committee was completed in just a few weeks i can say with confidence that ms abraham is the epitome of this of efficiency she's excellent at identifying the issues the why with respect to any goal or problem

021she listens effectively and she keeps the student-centered mission and vision of our district front and center ms abraham has stepped forward as a leader throughout the pandemic and has been humbly accountable for her efforts she has a process-oriented disposition she is a strong communicator both clear in her statements and an active and generous listener she has brought these important skills to the weekly meetings of the evaluation team to consider our learning mode helping us to track the proper data and evaluate the relevant questions for that weekly discussion in addition i have found her to be open available knowledgeable confident yet unassuming ms abraham provides us with continuity but also she is a person with vision for our future and she has a trusted ability to lead us i'm really excited to have the opportunity to

022work with miss abraham as our next superintendent thank you very much miss minion okay i'm on um so thank you miss snowden um for that it's really i i i'm going to open with a comment about my process and how i look at things from my per my professional perspective so those of you who know me or know what i do know that i specialize in working with people who are non-verbal um sometimes data is everything sometimes the narrative points are everything often there's a combination so that's a little bit about i think how like what my decision-making process looks like and so i feel like that's relevant in german to the conversation of um what does this process look like sometimes there are data-driven points sometimes there are narrative points we synthesize that to

023come up with information so i think it's um dr good uses the word iterative a lot and i think that's always a good description of what's going on we um as a board i feel like i want to acknowledge the fact that we read every email that you send and that information isn't data driven but it's narrative and it gives us information that kind of helps us in the decision making process so that's just a little bit about the process um now to the good stuff i want to talk about my experiences with mrs mrs abra miss abraham i'm excited to export deep breath i'm excited to support her as our choice for superintendent during the last year as the board representative to our academic committee i've had many opportunities um i've had opportunities to

024meet with quarterly with miss abraham one on one i always find her to be knowledgeable prepared engaged responsive to answering questions i personally have heard from her first hand about her focus and attention to the equity work facing the district this fall we had a conversation that really impressed me with her attention to the achievement gaps um that are secondary to the spring um so to the spring learning mode and how we were going to address those not only from the student perspective but in a way to communicate that with the parents during the conferences so that parents felt empowered to and support their students as we move forward with their education and then i want to highlight just her her development i've heard from her first hand the development process using the instructional coaches

025the benefits not only um from the staff perspective but from the student perspective she has a good insight as to how all those processes have worked and the benefits to them i feel like it's important to highlight that she's familiar with our staff our students our community and our com our strategic plan she's coming in with inside with basically inside information as to who we are and what we value and that gives her a head start in ways that um other candidates just just wouldn't have she she's been listening um and i've always felt that marley kind of highlighted some of the things that um we identified or that were identified previously on the leadership profile courageous strategic transparent and commands respect were the ones that really stuck that stood out when marley kind of

026reviewed that as words that i would um use to describe miss abraham um i think victoria just mentioned she real oh no maybe you didn't this is this is not something that victory said this is something i want to add but we've also highlighted um building trust and staff and building leadership from within and again i've had personal conversations with miss abraham where i could like see that process working it's it's exciting and i'm excited as marley mentioned for um the community to be involved in some of the this conversation so that you can see in here firsthand some of the work that she's done um again not to talk about myself but i think the idea of like what i bring to the board is that excitement and the passion for like the edge

027i'm a little bit of like the education geek i think like on the board and i have to say that in all the conversations i've had as a board member the ones that i'm the most excited or the most energized about what's happening in our schools tend to be conversations that i've had with ms abraham and so i think that energy like her knowledge and her passion show through in the conversations that she has and i i'm always energized by like what what what we have cooking based on what um she's sharing she is a process-oriented person and i can say um i think that was what victoria said was she's a process-oriented person and i will share that i've had two um two people on the team say two separate occasions say that she's

028the most prepared person i know when it comes to a meeting and i think that is really something that um is to be is to be valued and i'm excited for and so i think when you have that combination of prepared strategic and a listener she brings a lot to the table and we're very excited about how this is um about moving forward sorry it's muted thank you very much i appreciate that um mr varno thanks um i i agree with everything that the three of you have said so far but i kind of one of the things that i that i try to focus on one is as was mentioned marley and alicia and i went through the process with dr miller that's not the only way to to get to superintendent many many

029districts that i researched and information that was provided by dr good and other sources have these succession plans go with the internal it's not always a big community event not that we don't value the community input but i think one of the things that that at least for me personally one of the things that is important is to see um and understand and this is even how we did our last process we went into those though the candidates districts and talked to the people that they worked with and got that information from those people one of the advantages of with with jill is um i i think maybe like an on-the-job interview so to speak is the december 10th meeting that we had talking about the service model task force and her powerpoint and how

030that went i i think that that's a perfect example of of why i strongly support uh appointing jill miss abraham as our superintendent um you know there's been a lot of discussion about the process by law when we talk about employment we have we discussed these things in executive session when dr miller left we've been discussing this that that is an important point this process isn't just something we threw together last week or a couple weeks ago or whenever we've been talking about this and had some very robust discussions about where we come down and the pros and cons of doing a big national search a local search going through the esc we had a number of options of how we would do this one of the things that that i believe that my my

031colleagues um trusted in is is what miss abraham can bring to this district and what she's already brought to this district again i would invite anyone to go back and and watch the video uh from the december 10th meeting and pull up the service model task force as as ms powers mentioned there were 141 members that were part of this task force six different work groups numerous people that that miss abraham was in charge of of putting that together and when you watch that meeting and again i understand this is one meeting but i think it's a great example of of what we have found with somebody that's right here in our backyard so to speak to to appoint a superintendent and that is her ability as a as the as my other colleagues have

032mentioned her ability to bring people together to be very deliberate and and smart and intelligent and and see the viewpoints of many people and understand those viewpoints and and be able to to change with those um one of the things that impressed me especially with that but you know as working with mr abraham over the last over a year and a half or almost two years i'm impressed by her thoroughness and thoughtfulness and the attention to the detail that she has the the service task model was a perfect example of that again i keep referring back to that because it it's the epitome of what i see in miss abraham she answered questions she was flexible she addressed the needs of of numerous numerous constituent constituencies i i would challenge anyone if you can put

033together 141 different people on a task force and come to a a final decision that not everybody is going to agree with but watches which is the right decision that's kind of what we're looking at here i know that there are people out there saying we need to do this community the meetings and do these interviews that's a that's a good way to do things but this is also a good way to do things and let's not get lost in the process of it i think the results and the substance of of where someone arrives is also vitally important um we've been through this just three just over three years ago three and a half years ago and as as ms snowden pointed out we have the profile that was put together by a search

034firm that we put together that we look at that and use that as a springboard we weighed the pros and cons again a robust discussion in executive session that's required by law that we've had among ourselves and we've listened and we've talked to people and and we know that we know that there are there are some concerns about we didn't have community feedback or input we have complete community feedback and input we have that from that process but also from the process over the last year that we've had task force committees with numerous variety of people from our community and again i believe that getting all of this information and weighing the pros and cons that we are are not discounting other people's thoughts of wanting to have these community meetings and looking in and

035talking to the candidates we will have that opportunity with with with missy abraham um as we proceed but we wanted what was best and when we've got got to this conclusion i believe that this is our best decision we have the best candidate for our job uh for our superintendent job right here and i think miss abraham is that she's a true leader i think her leadership skills have been shown to us and throughout the district um and and i think that's an important part to this whole thing you might not like the process this is new to bexley this living here for over 22 years i know that's a difficult thing sometimes here to do something different doesn't mean it's not right and i think in this situation with all the circumstances that we

036have this is the right decision she is the right person um and i think when when you go through again go look back at that december 10th meeting look at her demeanor the questions that that she gets from the board not only from that meeting but in the past that we're not always great about uh what the questions we asked but handled them you know you know as a leader would calmly politely exactly answering questions she didn't have the answer she would tell you that if things needed to be changed she would do that so in the end i i think it the the process has been thorough it has been deliberate we have been going through this for three or four months and we've been talking about this and and from my perspective there's

037no other better person to lead us than miss abraham this decision wasn't rushed this wasn't pushed through it was informed by lots of information and data again i know there's a lot of concerns about the from the public about the community involvement but you know from my perspective i ultimately answer to you if you believe that there are other things that you would like me to know email me send me your phone number i'll be happy to talk to you about why i believe this is the best decision i'm happy to discuss that my email is john.barno at bexley.us it's on the website feel free to contact me if you want to talk on the phone and talk about this process of where we came down i'm happy to do that anybody that wants to

038have that time i'm happy to do that so i guess from the from in the end i don't want to get lost in the process i know that a lot of again the concerns about how the process was this was uh something that we have been thinking and talking about and having lots of discussions and weighing the pros and cons and looking what our best option is again i think this is the best option and i don't want the procedure or the process to cloud the ultimate result and that is i believe we have the best person for the job in in miss abraham i thoroughly and utterly trust my colleagues that we have made the right decision i trust them with this decision i trust that this is what we what we are undertaking

039is the best for our district as we go forward um you know there are a lot of circumstances here that that we could say well there the pandemic all of these other things we have somebody in place just be i just wanted to be clear i don't believe any of us think that we brought up that we're bringing on or planning on appointing miss abraham as our superintendent because of the circumstances the circumstances are what they are however in the end she is the right person for the job regardless of the circumstances regardless of where we are and we're not letting the circumstances dictate this this isn't the easy pick or this is a a pandemic pick she is the right person for the job and i think that i strongly believe that and again

040um the work that she's done for our district over the last year and a half for me was was plenty of an interview and we've had feedback and information and i think she is the right person for the job so i i will strongly support her appointment thank you very much mr burno ms mitchell thank you miss snowden i am equally excited as my colleagues about um the appointment of miss abraham to the position of superintendent uh and i i certainly won't belabor the community uh in terms of raising the points that everyone else has already made but i did want to talk a little bit about what impressed me about miss abraham over the last year and a half almost two years and also in my engagement with her i know the community may

041think that the only thing i ever talk about is diversity equity and inclusion um but i do talk about lots of other things but this is one particular area where i had an opportunity to evaluate her from afar and then also work alongside her and the thing that i think has always impressed me about her ability to step into a space with confidence warmth humility uh of not necessarily sympathizing but willing to empathize and be open to um the frustration or the confusion that community members may feel and be engaging enough and responsive enough to say i want to work with you to see something better um and not to make you know posture postured promises but really come back every time and acknowledge to those community members that i see you i hear you

042and i value you and that she saw our students and she heard our students she has engaged in the last year when yes the world was responding to the pandemic we were also living through probably one of the most visible civil rights justice injustice moments in our our most recent history and she took the moment to say i value those voices she's been a part of the de and i work that the district has been engaged in since she came here um and been critical in the uh just the restructuring of um our academic goals that support um many many areas of achievement for uh students of color in particular in our district um i have watched her support and mentor uh not only her her staff and administrators but i watched her incredible relationship

043with um miss laisson smith who is now no longer with us and i think the thing that um impressed me deeply about that is that's not easy work and it's not easy work when you come to the conversation with a different lens but she always remained open and willing to hear and support and advocate and it was something that has always stuck with me i think it helped us to be able to continue the work that we do in this district i see the relationships that she has built with our administrative staff setting those expectations having those tough conversations but acknowledging that we'll get through them together that collaboration again and so i while i appreciate that our community will need to take the opportunity to get to know her and see her in these

044lights in the coming months what i know in what i have seen is that she will collect that data and she will come back with a process because she is listening she is watching and she values deeply the expectations of our community the expectations of this board and aside from the fact that she has just shown herself to be an incredibly incredibly warm and uh engaging human being and it's exactly what we're looking for to lead our district someone who is um excited about all the things that we we are known for and all the things that we aspire to be and so i you know don't want to talk forever i could probably go on um i thank my colleagues for the opportunity to uh have these discussions uh as we have over the

045last couple of couple of months excuse me i have a tickle uh and i'm looking forward to seeing uh miss abraham map out a vision for the district um that builds on the work that we have done in the work that she's been engaged in these last couple of years and i thank you for that i thank you for what you have done with the staff and partnered with the administrative staff and and our teachers and i'm really just excited about um what uh you will do so thank you very much ms mitchell i appreciate that um i just want to close out this section uh i wanted something that i forgot to mention i i got a note from a staff member early this evening and i just thought it was important for for

046our community to also know the support that jill has from her staff so here's just an example of one it says i want to thank you for making such a wise decision and choosing jill as our next superintendent her knowledge of our staff students and community will provide us with a much needed smooth transition into the next school year i am confident in her ability to listen to learn with and lead our schools and community in the upcoming years i thought that was a pretty good summary of why we all feel so good about this um and again coming from our staff so given all of that and our statements and um that background information i would now like to entertain a motion to appoint john barno as the board representative to negotiate on behalf

047of the board of education a superintendent contract with jill abraham so moved second thank you any further discussion am i allowed to vote for this you all all uh you are all in favor please specify by saying aye hi hi any opposed name's nine thank you um so with that motion carried we um are done with our section 3a um i know that ms abraham wanted to um make a comment to us all and perhaps this is a good time for that um miss abraham are you come on there she is thank you great thank you president snowden and members of the board of ed i just want to thank you for affording me this incredible opportunity to serve the students faculty and staff of bexley city schools in the bexley community i am truly

048honored to serve the district in this new capacity and i recognize that in a year in which we've experienced significant change that i'm uniquely positioned to provide continuity to our students our staff and our bexley families i'm grateful for the experiences that i've gained in my role as the chief academic officer and i look forward to utilizing those experiences and my continued support for our faculty and staff with their ongoing work and as i look ahead i'm most excited for continued partnership with stakeholders as we thoughtfully take steps to return to the exceptional learning experience afforded to our students pre-pandemic and is defined by our strategic strategic plan to further define our priorities and practices to ensure that all bexley students feel represented and valued as a member of our school community with equitable access

049to the vast experiences available to our students and i look forward to continued work as we ensure that our students mental health and well-being needs are nurtured with the support of the entire community i am a passionate learner and a listener and a leader and i am most grateful for this opportunity i thank you thank you very much we're we're thrilled i'm very excited thank you jill um so i think we can now move on to um section four a which is our board um reports uh i did our superintendent or sorry the um yeah superintendent policy committee did not meet this month so i can pass on quickly to ms powers thank you marley two reports first the bexley rec board met on january 13th mike price reported that there was a smooth transition

050for providing jeffrey care during the new hybrid 2.0 model he wanted to be sure that i thanked harley williams jill abraham and our elementary principals for their support in all of that transition and and the the work that went into that john eichenberry has also been supportive in helping the use of bexley school bus district on bexley school district buses to transport the students currently there are 70 students more or less who are participating in that and the care is being provided at st albans because the stay-at-home order has been extended bexley rec youth basketball for the winter had to be canceled and there is a hope that that can be picked up in the summer the next meeting is scheduled for tomorrow evening second report is from the january 14th meeting of the franklin

051county school board member alliance in that meeting the group discussed the status of the cup patterson school funding reform legislation there was also a discussion about an anticipated law school lawsuit regarding the state's ed choice educational choice voucher program on the grounds that it unfairly diverts funds away from public education in addition group members discussed their current learning modes and at that time most of the districts represented in the group were in a hybrid mode some of them did not have their students back from winter break yet the next meeting of that group is scheduled for this saturday february 13th that's what i have thank you thank you very much um mr burnham um i don't have any specific updates on the technology or athletic board um i did reach out to uh dr williams

052and and um there's no there will be no athletic board meetings this year but um he graciously offered that if there's anything that the board needed for the athletic board to discuss or if there's any policies or anything specific um that may need to be uh brought to the athletic board to just let him know and he would be happy to schedule a meeting so other than that i don't have any reports thank you thank you very much ms mineo oh michelle you're muted sorry you think you click the button and you really don't okay so that i have nothing new to report you know usually i get an email at the beginning of the month i'm giving me a legislative uh update from osba and that just hasn't arrived yet because it's online the

053second day of the month so i will uh forward you guys the information as i get it perfect thank you ms mitchell yes i just have um a couple of quick updates for uh bef um the one for all campaign is still chugging along we have um reached about 750 000 uh donations and confirmed and committed um direct payments i think those are called and committed uh donations uh so we're about 250 000 off the goal for the 1 million dollar goal that we set and we cannot hesitate to thank the bef for what an incredible and impressive job that they have done in the few short months of helping our students get devices in their hands it really made a difference in the success of our learning modality and so we'll be eternally always

054singing their praises but thankful and grateful for their work um they will have a campaign committee meeting time tomorrow at 6 30. um bef will participate again in the annual state of the community event that's organized by the city of bexley that's set for february 18th starting at 6 30 p.m in our chair mr siegerman will present there we also are planning a really exciting event um it is not in the place in replace of bravo um that event obviously will not be able to take place this year but this event um is really like a virtual gratitude event set for april 21st um and so there we're early on in the stages of what that's going to look like to recognize not only teachers and staff we always celebrate a bef teacher of the

055year at that at this event usually and um well this particular event will be doing something a little different around that because we had some um real star standout teachers i don't know if we could even pick one looks like there's a lot to put on on a virtual event so i don't know uh what that plan will be but i will report out next month with a little bit more details and how we can all support and then the youth philanthro philanthropy group did a lion sleeps tonight sleep mask packet to all of the bexley middle school students it included sleep masks earplugs tea bags and tips to get a good night's sleep thank you very much youth philanthropy group because i have a middle schooler that does not seem to understand the value

056of a good night's sleep so we'll be putting that to good use and that is all i have for today thank you um and your report brought up two things that i should have mentioned i appreciate um you mentioned the state of community um that will be um we will participate in that as well along with other um city organizations and that's 6 30 on the 18th so look for an update from us um at that and also um the friend of education nominations are now available so um the information should be on our website if it's not you can um you can email me or um mary davison in in dr good's office and she can forward you on um a friend of education nomination as as a former recipient of that award i

057have to say it's it's a very um thoughtful and meaningful award and um i really appreciate when our community offers up those nominees we always get to hear so many great stories that we might not otherwise get to hear so we really appreciate all nominations so um and um miss noting you reminded me something about the teacher of the year nominations i believe they're going to nominate from each school this year um and then have one they'll so they'll have a representative from each school and then one at bexley educator of the year so i apologize i misspoke on that that's great thank you for the update all right miss george how is getting back into school it's going well um pretty much we thought that even though this year has been super tough it's

058still important to give back and so even though our charity month normally takes place in november um we created our own charity month in february and we're super excited to get started on that we're doing a canned food drive where we will be donated to the broad street food pantry we're going to be doing a candy gram delivery and then also just donations in general and i just really wanted to say thank mr smith for helping us through all of this and figuring out um the best way to do this at a distance and we're just really super excited to get started on that that's really all i have great thank you so much sarah all right so we are now moving on to past our board reports on to section 5a our superintendent's comments

059um dr good thank you president snowden good evening and and congratulations to the board of education for their selection of jill abraham to become the superintendent of bexley city schools effective june 1st it it really has been a privilege and a pleasure to work with jill and and the entire bexley city schools professional learning community my objective for the next four months is to support the district and its successor superintendent as bexley continues to lead the education industry i've every confidence that this great city's local public school system will prosper under miss abraham's leadership because jill is the consummate collaborator she has demonstrated time and again everyone has heard that she is a good listener she's a good communicator she's one who designs and implements with fidelity she's inclusive collaborative and yes michelle iterative in

060her processes and those processes always result always result in outcomes that are consistent with the commitments of our board and their community commitments to equity and commitments to excellence in my experience she epitomizes what it means to be an effective bexley city schools leader one who is engaging equipping and empowering of all learners children and adults alike for success i look forward to working with you i hate to interrupt you will you i just got um i've got i had several pop-ups i think people are having a hard time hearing you could you um lean into your microphone i'm hoping might be that i think it is i think i had a paper covering up my microphone okay i think i think the basic i think i was able to hear and i and i

061think others but i i just thought we would make you as clear as possible see this is why you need a new superintendent joe can you move can you work a microphone all right this is mine until june 1st so i i look forward to working with jill really over the next four months and i look forward to introducing her to members of our bexley community those of you who haven't had yet the opportunity to experience her leadership when i read through that leadership profile and compared it to the gifts jill brings to this role i felt confident the district will be in good hands truly and i'm encouraged that perhaps like many of the high-performing districts bexley has now begun the practice of developing in its own successors those familiar with bexley stakeholders and

062vexi strategic plan those who are ready to guide us to next with a focus on what our community has said is critical right now and they've said very clearly continuity and stability and i believe jill is the right person can people hear me now okay well speaking of a prospering place it seems appropriate that i update on provide an update on how our school personnel both students and staff are faring during the pandemic it's a positive note that 88 of bexley city school staff indicated an interest in receiving the covet 19 vaccine the immunizations for k-12 employees began in franklin county today and they will continue through saturday and the staff feedback on the actual inoculation has been very very positive what they don't realize is their arms are going to hurt very very much

063tomorrow but it was just the first group so well this is good news the bad news is that the current covid19 cases in the city of bexley remain high the bexley data showed a substantial increase in infection rate last week with 748 positive cases out of 100 000 residents that's up from per 100 000 the week prior so this is evidence that we cannot allow our guard to come down even with vaccines for staff on the horizon when it comes to determining our learning mode bexley city schools has an evaluation team and it takes a two-fold approach and assesses both the epidemiological response and our district's capacity to continue delivering a high quality and equitable learning experience to our students they make a recommendation in other words where is the risk of viral spread and

064what are its effects on student and staff absences so our current trajectory of staff and student covid related absences remains manageable at its current rate and we continue to have no data no data that supports evidence of transmission of the virus in the classrooms however we do see positive cases that can be contact traced to social gatherings in the community and indoor sporting events where mask wearing and social distancing is either not possible or is not enforced now we are fully committed to increasing contact time and consistency with all of our students in the classrooms but it has to be within the boundaries of the health and safety measures that have proven thus far to keep our faculty and staff and students safe a full return to a normal instructional schedule is definitely our shared

065goal hybrid and remote learning was never expected to be a long-term plan presently we operate what we refer to as hybrid 2.0 our elementary students have in-person classes every day for half a day our middle and high school students all day every other day except for today because we had a snow day so just over half of ohio's public school districts are operating like us five days a week while the others are operating part of the week or even remotely regardless i'll say it again our north star is to have all students in class every day all day so we are diligently reassessing our space requirements in our capacity to ensure that all the safeguards can be observed and we are watching close to the impact the impact of the variance of the coronavirus may

066have on our ability to expand any in-person instructional time we will continue to work closely with the evaluation team as they provide expert guidance and assessment of the epidemiological and system capacity needs there's one caveat and this is a critical one in order to have students we must have our staff employee absences put stress on a school system and risk diminishing the quality of instruction the bexley city school faculty are highly skilled and they play a fundamental role in their students learning processes we love them and we love our guest teachers and we owe a great deal of gratitude to the community members who have recently become substitutes thank you still the district has a need for more substitute teachers in order to ease the burden the pandemic has placed on our school system the

067last week of february staff will have the opportunity to have their second dose of the vaccination a dose that has resulted in documented 24-hour flu-like side effects we wouldn't want teachers with those symptoms to be teaching in person or remotely many of these individuals have 102 degree temperatures so without substitutes we may be facing temporarily a remote learning modality again in just about three weeks the way to not face that is for you to substitute for us so if you're interested in subbing please contact my office and we'll get you taken care of moving on so very much time away from instruction makes any summer learning opportunities even more important whether they are one day learning seminars or multi-week experiences so we've begun building our portfolio of activities for students and their families to speak

068more toward what we're planning i've asked chief academic officer jill abraham to give us a preview of what we're thinking jill yeah thanks dr good we began a few weeks ago socializing this idea with our principals to begin to think about summer school differently oftentimes in the past it's been an opportunity for remediation or maybe to give kids a little bit of a jump start into coursework in the year ahead and what we're recognizing as we've moved through this most unique year is that our kids also need an opportunity just to be together to have contact with one another and so we are really looking to offer opportunities throughout the summer that would be a balance of intervention enrichment times to just come together and and be participate in book clubs um to truly have

069fun in the learning process to do passion projects so we most recently reached out to our teachers and surveyed them to share their ideas share their potential interest in being somebody who might be an instructor and we've had about 30 staff members who've provided ideas for us and again our thinking is it could be something as simple as an opportunity for kids to be together for just one day it could be a workshop that lasts a week or one day a week throughout the summer so our hope is to offer a variety of opportunities for our students we're also hoping to provide family our families connections to activities that are happening around central ohio so we get so many uh things from a variety of organizations ode that tell us their summer offerings and so

070we want to make sure that those are easily acceptable to our families so we our hope is to be compiling those and be able to give those uh our plans to our families in early spring and we also spoke most recently as of today to reach out to our community to allow you the opportunity to provide ideas or interests that you think would be beneficial to our students of course we have big ideas and big hopes and that requires the support of many people and so we've also discussed the potential of reaching out to our local colleges and universities to see if their education students would be interested in helping us support this work with our students so we're excited about the opportunity we're engaging in that planning and we hope to provide some wonderful

071time for our students to connect and learn together this summer thank you jill following the summer sessions it's time to begin the 2021-2022 academic year and tonight the board has its first reading of the bexley high school curriculum handbook and modifications to that handbook that reflect new graduation pathways and requirements bexley high school assistant principal craig mcmillan joins us this evening to provide an overview of those changes craig thank you dr good certainly i was able to communicate the uh the revised version to board members earlier and they were able to ask some thoughtful questions about um about these changes one of the things that i do want to highlight it was a source of a handful of questions from the board of education members was specifically about legislation that causes some of these changes

072to happen so yes many of the changes excuse me in the class of 2023 and moving forward there is a change in the number of tests required for graduation there is no change i should note in the number of credits required for graduation for the class of 2023 and beyond but there are changes to the testing requirements those specific documents are linked in the document that we hope to have board approved and available for families and i hope the citizens of bexley can rest assured that i have my finger firmly on the pulse of these changes as well as others on a consistent and almost constant basis thank you oh dan you're muted are there any questions for greg no i will just say that um i think it's interesting these new changes and i

073know we have a couple years to get used to them but the idea of graduation seals i'm especially interested in the one about community engagement and for our students i think that's a that's a really a service learning model that um that i've looked forward to and i think it'll be interesting to see how that rolls out so i appreciate you taking the time to to look through that with us um mr mcmillan and and i know great things are to come i will also just say thank you to ms abraham for getting us the um the new handbook uh with its changes early on so that we would have the time to look through it in advance of the meeting and also to mr mcmillan who did field questions and gave me the answers

074and he has now described some of that so very much appreciate the input and the information and all the work that's going into it thank you all right the final thing i'll speak to if i make president snowden is the memorandum of understanding that is item 5g again it's an illustration of one of the things i value most about this community is the way we work together and i will tell you kudos to aaron clary and mark frank the leaders of the bexley education association and to our treasurer kyle smith and the director of operations dr williams we sat together and determined that our current leave policy didn't necessarily accommodate the pandemic conditions where one may have a dependent who is quarantined but doesn't have symptoms and so sick leave is generally awarded to dependents

075with symptoms and so we crafted a memorandum of understanding and the bargaining unit was a part of that and it was it was really a beautiful model of negotiations we had some proposed language the bargaining unit had some proposed language and we shared that back and forth vetting it with our respective groups and came up with something everyone thought was very fair and something that was best for children and ultimately that's what drives our decisions and so i will tell you i don't really want to read it but one almost has to read it to understand specifically what it says but if there is a teacher bargaining unit member who has a dependent family member and that family member is quarantined due to exposure and must remain home but may not be exhibiting any symptoms

076the bargaining unit can use their leave first they would use all of their personal leave except for one day which they would retain for emergency purposes and then any remaining sick leave they had so that they could be home with that child but they wouldn't have to if they're able to teach remotely from their home and their supervisor agrees that their job responsibilities could be fulfilled then they would actually teach remotely from home and still be able to provide supervision to their dependent asymptomatic family member who's been quarantined and so it's i think it's a wonderful agreement um i think it will again help us address those capacity issues remember which were one of the two conditions we look at when determining the learning modality for bexley city schools so thank you to aaron and

077mark and to harley and kyle for helping to craft this and thanks to the board of education for supporting us great thank you very much i appreciate all of your updates and your leadership through this exciting time all right can i have a motion to approve item 5i which is approval of items five b through h don't move cal you can figure that one out um all right all in favor please signify by saying aye hi oh i'm sorry mr um smith i think it's a roll call vote because it's personnel sorry would you please call the roll you're you're correct thank you the winner was miss mineo so i'll call her first oh yes mr barno yes miss mitchell yes miss powers yes ms snowden yes thank you all right so moving on if

078um we can please have item 6a our treasurer's comments mr smith that's you again thank you um i'm just pulling up my notes sorry um i'm also driving the board docks as well so january uh tends to be a a little bit busier of a month financially sorry as i pull this up for us so there's it's mostly on the the income side of things we'll start with uh we start with collecting our first half of our property taxes line 1.01 and you'll see a variance of about 636 thousand dollars to the negative that's purely a timing issue right now i don't get too nervous um normally when uh at this time of the year usually i i focus in on the final settlement of the first half which will happen at the end of

079february or the beginning of march uh so right now it's just a timing variance of of collections the county was also behind in getting their notices out to uh property owners so i believe that's probably why we see a little bit of a decrease than what we would be expecting uh the next thing is the uh the income tax it also comes in january i'll come back to that there's a couple pages uh later uh talking about the income tax and i'll highlight that later 1.035 is unrestricted state grants and aid that's higher right now because the we were a little conservative in forecasting the casino tax which also comes in january so that came in better than what we were expecting um mainly due to covid we were conservative on that estimate one thing

080i'll also mention here is this particular line 1.035 is going to continue to see a positive variance from here on out two weeks ago the governor adjusted the state budget for schools if you'll recall we were we were receiving um funding cuts from the state starting in may and going through this year the state's financially done better than than forecasting so they have started to return some of those funds back to agencies schools being one of them um that for us looks to to be an improvement of over 200 000 dollars towards our budget this year so that line is going to be better than forecasted um and then other financing sources again still in revenue like 2.06 you're seeing a 376 thousand 000 variants that is primarily due that that is due to uh

081what the state is calling dividend payments from the bureau of workers compensation so we're in that program with the state and mainly because of covid they started sending um money or cash reserves back to districts or i'm sorry employers who were part of that program so for us that was 300 000 that happened uh in november if you'll recall i said right as i was presenting the november forecast that i we just learned of that payment coming so it wasn't built into the forecast so that that finally came in january and it's been good news on the expense side nothing too alarming um we've seen some some trend in personnel and insurance benefits being lower than expected uh which is always a good thing um one item i'll note oh let's skip down to the

082income tax um and then i'll go back to agenda items so like i said january is a income tax payment month it's not the largest we receive but um it's it's a decent amount so it is the highest january payment we've received and in this time is something i wouldn't have guessed or projected but it's it's a welcome sign to see a large january payment the important things that i look at is the green bars which is the employer payments or payroll withholding that's the most current data that we have on this on our income tax because it reflects and you'll see if i scroll down here the january 21 reflects payroll withholdings primarily of september october and november obviously there is some some payments in individual tax returns and quarterly returns but primarily what

083the department of taxation says is this payment's primarily payroll taxes so you can see in the green that's the highest we have received in recent history and even in some other portions of this the individual tax return 383 thousand for this month um again has been the highest that we've seen in recent history also um refunds so people filing adjustments to their taxes or maybe have paid too much in their estimations that that amount lower so overall good news for that when you look at on a cumulative standpoint i hope this is not too small i'll see if i can zoom in a little bit so 2021 is the green bar um or line coming up you can see it's hot the cumulative is the highest we've received so far again kind of strange considering

084the economic situation where i imagine other districts or communities may not be as fortunate as us when it comes to the income tax collection but as you can see if you are looking commun cumulatively from from january this column here 6.38 million again the best that we've seen in recent memory 2017 you'll see a total of 8.1 million which is the highest we received last year was 7.9 so i would suspect that we're we're close we could be close to uh another 8 million collection year i'll preface that with saying april 21 is what we still have to come there's going to be 20 20 annual returns so that's where we could see some effects of covid smaller or reduced incomes people filing with reduced income so we'll watch that that'll be telling the bigger

085tale will be july 21. um that is our largest payment uh of the year it represents about 40 of the entire income tax collection if you'll recall that was delayed to october this year a big chunk of that was delayed to october so good news i would say coming from the income tax collection any questions about that before i move on to a couple other topics on the agenda mr smith it'd be safe to assume that since we've had these positive collections um come in that we weren't necessarily anticipating should we see a decrease in the filing on the filing side that will still be in a strong position financially right i mean because it's such a like astounding performance considering yeah yeah i i think um what i'm really what i've really focused on

086is that the green the payroll taxes with that being consistent and not really seeing dips um even on the the year to date i think that's um that's important but as as i've you've heard me say a lot um bexley's unique in that we rely on a lot of individual and quarterly filers and that's that's going to be telling so but um [Music] this we'll see fourth quarter filers in april um but to answer your point one we're in strong financial uh footing right now and a lot of that's due to the 2019 levy that's really um support of us sure thank you mr smith can i just ask the other side of that same issue [Music] really impressive numbers on the revenue side and you noted that there were a few smaller than expected

087expenses and do you expect that to i know it's impossible to say with certainty but would it be your experience that we'll probably continue to see those reduced numbers that provide a little bit of savings for us as well yeah i i what i'm seeing in personnel and retirement insurance benefits as far as trend goes i believe that's going to continue um leave the leaves of absences change um but i would say the trend for those two particular lines will continue um purchase service could could be a timing issue um as you and i had a conversation before it can swing it can swing a little bit so for our people listening this 145 thousand dollars was a negative 45 000 a month ago two months ago it was about 145 so you can see

088it it swings a little bit um [Music] so that trend could continue but i'd need to really dive into them and that makes sense thank you any other questions on monthly report or income tax before i highlight a couple other items okay transfers and advances this is something that we do time to time when there's a negative cash balance for funds or if we need to front grant monies ahead of time before the end of the fiscal year we normally have normally done this for food services in october but have delayed it a little bit because of a review from the ohio department of education [Music] just saying that this particular fund had too much cash on hand and they view that as a federal grant or federal dollars and there's certain stipulations on cash

089balances with federal dollars you can't you essentially you can't have too much money in federal grants um and when we did that in october it it really looked like we had way too much cash on hand a way to avoid that issue or that concern for auditors is to wait and delay that that infusion of cash into our food service program to now or or make smaller transfers so i've elected to wait until the cash balance gets a little bit lower so it doesn't cross over that threshold that auditors really don't like to see i'll take this opportunity t opportunity now to also say that our food service department is is taking a hit financially because of covid we're not serving as many students in our lunchrooms as we normally would obviously so revenues are

090down not as much as i feared um going into this school year um expenditures have gone down a little bit but that's primarily in food costs we still have personnel costs still takes the same number of people to provide um 100 lunches versus 200 lunches for example um so expenditures have not decreased a little bit so my point is i expect us to transfer a little bit more this year uh and we'll do that in june finally i just have four-year information a records commission meeting scheduled for the 25th of this month this is a meeting primarily between by statute the superintendent myself and the board president we normally have this in september or october and the purpose is primarily to dispose of records that are on our record schedule for disposal for me that

091is old records with purchase orders or checks that have exceeded 10 years with and being being audited audited uh they take up space um i i'm happy to say that in the future there won't be records to dispose of in my office when it comes to purchase orders because we're digital but we still have some records from 2010 2011 that are collecting dust and could could use storage um for other areas or other departments could use that storage so that's the primary reason we also will review our records retention schedule which we're required to have and if there's any adjustments to that schedule we'll submit those changes to the ohio history connection and the ohio auditor estate they both have to approve our records retention schedule so um it usually follows a prescribed format that

092they they have and we adjust as necessary as things change for example used to be everything was paper you kept out you kept all the paper now with things being digital we've updated that that record schedule to to reflect the capability of digital storage it's a pretty easy and quick meeting thank you very much um all right any questions for any other questions for mr smith i apologize for seeing the side of my head as i was looking at being here and trying that right i know you're wearing a lot of hats tonight um i appreciate it okay then can i have a motion to approve item 6e which is approval of items six b and c so moved doc thank you all in favor please signify by saying aye hi hi any opposed same

093sign thank you that motion carries all right so tonight we because it's a regular board meeting have a public comment available as we have been doing in the past with our zoom meetings we have asked people to sign up in advance so that we can let you raise your hand and speak mr trill do we have or mr smith do we have um people signed up for public um comment tonight yes miss newton we do i i've allowed the the raising of hands so if um if miss reuben could raise her hand um she was the first all right with this i'll give her a second um and see if i can also see any name by that okay i will go ahead and read our um yeah please yeah thank you and then um

094so although under state law the board of education is not required to offer public comment time during regular board meetings we do welcome the opportunity to hear from our community members as such we encourage your participation within certain parameters prior to the start of your speaking if you could please tell us your full name and address we would appreciate that please also limit your comments to five minutes per our board policy finally we know the public comment is just that it's the public's opportunity to be heard it is not a q a session with a board we look forward to hearing from your comments but per our board policy we will not respond to public comments in a meeting or as individual board members you can be assured however that we are actively listening and

095taking notes for future reference in review with that said mr smith do you want to um yes i i i see the individual uh or i see mrs rubin i'm going to allow her to talk in case raising the hand option is not available so um we'll try this and thank you sorry okay mr rubin you with us hi can you hear me we can thank you okay um so thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to speak tonight um and i'll try to keep it brief i just wanted to discuss a little bit um just about the process and i mean no disrespect to miss abraham i did have a pleasant experience working with her on the task force for some of the reopening measures and i mean her no disrespect and

096i'm sure that she is a very qualified candidate um my concern and i think that i'm expressing concern uh from the community um i think that my my opinions are representative is not about miss abraham specifically but about the process and the lack of transparency the fact that we found out a couple of hours before this meeting that you were even so close to hiring someone is what i think a lot of us found quite frankly alarming um and while i recognize that um you know you're and actually i don't i don't know the law on this and i and i will you know refrain from sort of saying what the law is i understand that it's your opinion that you have the sort of right to make that decisi these decisions as a board

097unilaterally without community input it's not the input that bothers me the lack of input it's the lack of transparency so for example if it had been presented to the community that we have this wonderful internal person who is the right person for the job that we're not going to go outside of this person to find another candidate um and allowed the community to express any concerns that they might have prior to you making this decision i think again there will be a little bit less frustration from the community um and the fact that they're still even while i've been listening to this meeting there's been a complete lack of of real sort of disclosure as to what criteria were looked at other than this sort of three-year-old uh leadership qualification that was you know sort

098of gathered together what the types of leadership qualities that you read were the types of things that i could if i googled the word leader these are the types of things that would come up um you know that does not necessarily lend itself to saying that this one candidate the only candidate we looked at fulfills these qualifications i'm sure that she does but can we be sure that she is the only person who would be the right person for this job at this time and the answer again may be yes but the failure to look outside of just what is in front of us um and not sort of make a wide uh candidacy search is what really concerns me and again this lack of transparency until the moment before um and um you know

099again i i just want to i just would really request that there be some sort of report or written statement that really in detail goes through how you came to this decision hearing that you've been having these conversations for three or four months in executive sessions when the community had no idea that this is how this process was going and how fast it was going again it leads me to believe that there's absolutely no transparency um and again like i just i i i'm saying the same thing over and over again because again this was so quick and i haven't had a chance to really prepare my thoughts but um what the frustration is it really reflects a lack of trust in the board of education's decisions and that is such a grave concern and

100something that i really hope that you all will take back and think about that the community doesn't feel like they can just trust you to say this is the right person for the job rather their response is oh my gosh what are they doing how did they find this person you know on and on and on and on and on it reflects a real lack of trust and i hope that you'll take that back and you'll think about that and you'll find ways to communicate better with the community with more time with more effort with more engagement and again you know one of the ways that you can maybe repair this process which is appears to have already happened um is to provide that information to us provide us with a detailed report of every

101step you took every discussion that you had that you're allowed to disclose um and and how that process was done and give us the opportunity to say maybe this wasn't the right the right thing to do i also request that perhaps as part of your contract negotiations you consider some sort of out clause i'm not going to be the only one to suggest that maybe miss miller was not everyone's favorite candidate i was not everyone's favorite superintendent and i would hate to get ourselves into a situation where we had this ongoing obligation if it turns out that this one candidate that we looked at did not turn out to be the best person um again my apologies to ms abraham that you've been sort of drug in the middle of this um where i really

102do feel like this is not your fault and i mean you no disrespect um but i do just want to say that i do think that represents where the community is at with this and again i ask you to you know provide us with some more transparency and disclosure miss ruben thank you i i'm sorry we failed to ask for you for you to state your name and your address um as part of our record sure my name is lauren rubin i live at 156 south drexel avenue and that's obviously in bexley thank you next um i believe i saw the hand raised yes alana spector um i will allow you to speak and looks like you're good to go hello this is alana spector i live at 2444 fair avenue i imagine that with

103people listening my name and my voice is becoming more familiar and that is because i follow the activities of the board of education closely and i think it's important to note that as a 4 pm today i had absolutely no intention of making a public comment because looking at the agendas presented there was nothing to address so imagine my shock and horror to learn a mere hour before the meeting that this board has chosen a new superintendent for our district this board has made a long-term commitment without any transparency at all this is a public body you were subject to sunshine laws you were subject to the open meeting act and while you are entitled to discuss personnel matters in your executive sessions the open meeting act states that quote no vote or other decision

104making on the matters discussed may take place unquote and clearly when you put out a public notice that you've made a decision on who to hire we as a community are going to question whether you followed the sunshine laws i echo mrs rubin's comments this is not an issue with mrs abramson she is potentially the right candidate this is an issue with the board of education mr barno stated we should not get near down in the process i could not disagree with that statement any more strongly this is an engaged community and our most valuable asset is arguably our school district our board of education ran on slogans like transparency and your voice and you made a decision that will have a long-term effect on this community behind closed doors and i cannot believe that

105my first opportunity to give public comment is after you've already voted i understand that you made this decision based on information you gathered three years ago but much has changed in this community from three years ago including technology a worldwide pandemic our community's recognition of systematic racism in our community and in our school district discrimination against protected groups in our community and i would like to remind you that the search three years ago resulted in a hire who a large segment of the community did not feel understood the vision of this community and she was clearly not long term i understand that you relied on work groups but those work groups were not tasked with finding a superintendent and those work groups were not open to any resident who wanted to participate from my perspective

106they were cherry-picked and i find those statements to be upsetting again mrs abramson may be the perfect candidate but i have questions some of the qualifications you're asking for is someone with a deep understanding of the district she's only been here a year and a half i would question a deep understanding of a district that you've only been in for a year and a half you were looking for somebody with a deep understanding of leadership yet from my brief research and again i had an hour mrs abramson has only held a superintendent's license since 2019 and has never been a superintendent in any district i think that we need somebody that has experience i think that's a lot of what dr good brought with that with him i am appalled that just days ago we

107got a letter from dr gooda's community stating that this would come this search would become with transparency and one of the qualifications you're looking for is to someone who would honor community demand for transparency with complete information i can't understand how you can say those words and vote on a superintendent with no public input you say that you want somebody who's going to build trust in the staff and while you read a lovely letter i've had several staff members reach out to me today or this evening stating that they did not support this process or lack thereof mrs avenson may be the best candidate but i would like to know who else you'd consider i would like to know if you considered minority candidates i would like to know who else was available because a

108three-year-old search would not have given us mrs abraham she didn't hold a superintendent's license at the time this district deserves a thorough transparent and thoughtful and collaborative search and if she's the best candidate that would be wonderful and we can move forward but this board of education acted out of turn and i will not ignore the process thank you so that concludes our portion of public participation and public comment um we are moving now on to item eight which is other matters that make properly come before the board having added none of those that are um at the beginning with our agenda approval we can move on to executive session we have another executive session this evening um and i would now entertain a motion to excuse me let me make sure i have the

109right portion up [Music] nope sorry i don't there we go thank you for your patience um i'd like to entertain a motion to hold an executive section under ohio revised code 121.22 to consider the preparing conducting or reviewing negotiations or bargaining sessions with public employees concerning their compensation or other terms and conditions of their employment so thank you second thank you i'm sure you're interested in getting the out of there um thank you having it uh first and second um may um all in favor please signify by saying hi um mr smith did you get everybody on that one mrs powers i think you might have been on mute thank you um all right any opposing sign thank you that motion carries so we will now move into executive session we will come back and

110adjourn our meeting and when we are done or exec with executive session we do not anticipate a vote after executive session but we will adjourn again upon its completion thank you do you okay um so we are now here out of um executive session and can i have a motion to um resume our regular uh board meeting still moved thank you all in favor please signify by saying aye aye aye do you need to michelle in our sharing room just say aye aye mute got it i heard it hi thank you all right so i need now a motion to adjourn our meeting um so can i have a motion from her tournament please thanks so much second thank you all in paper please signify by saying aye hi all right any opposing sign that

111motion carries thank you good night all thank you